Why have I never thought of doing this before?

It first came to me last Monday. I thought that instead of preparing something for lunch (in Spain lunch tends to be the main meal of the day) that I would prepare four lunches instead. And within an hour or so I had made…

• a fab spicy bolognese sauce (minced beef, bacon, courgette & mushrooms)
• a delicious chicken & spinach biryani
• penne with cherry tomatoes, arrugula, shallots and goat cheese
• a very garlicky hummous

Easily enough food for the whole week, including snacks. And in the end it turned out that much less time was spent on both preparation and cleaning up than usual. Especially as a lot of the same ingredients were required (onions, garlic, peppers, etc) and so peeling and chopping up these ‘in bulk’ turned out to be much more efficient in terms of time spent.

And once everything was cooked and put into various plastic containers in the fridge it was like having a mini-buffet at our fingertips all week. I’m more of a ‘snacker’ than Nog is – he tends to prefer a ‘proper meal’. So for example, one evening this week he cooked some basmati rice and then just heated up some pre-prepared curry for it while I just had tortilla chips with hummous. Whatever.

It’s kind of liberated us from having to eat in the same way and at the same times and we both quite like this concept. It not only eliminates any feelings of guilt I might have if I don’t feel like cooking a proper meal one day, but it also means if either of us feels like a very tasty quick snack there is something really delicious just waiting in the fridge.

And as anyone who loves cooking knows … food never tastes quite as good just after you’ve spent two hours making it. So I’ve also been enjoying (for example) having a snack of bolognese sauce with freshly-grated parmesan on top two days later as it’s almost as if someone else made it.

Anyhow, Nog and I are both quite enjoying this new plan. Because, once we’ve got all the preparing/cooking/cleaning-up work over with it there’s all this lovely food that’s just there! For us to enjoy whenever we feel like it for the rest of the week. Mmmm…